Fires Ravage Oklahoma City, Texas Towns

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Grassfires raged across the dry southern prairie Sunday, burning homes in Oklahoma City, destroying two small towns in Texas, and creating patchworks of flames as burning embers were blown by winds gusting up 50 mph.

At least a dozen wildfires were burning across Oklahoma. In Texas, more than 20 fires sprang up, including a 22,400-acre blaze threatening 200 homes near Carbon, about 125 miles west of Dallas.

Crews flying over the Texas communities of Ringgold, a town of about 100 people near Wichita Falls, and tiny Kokomo, near Eastland, reported both had essentially been wiped out by flames, officials said.

In New Mexico, just across the Texas line, two dozen elderly residents were moved out of a nursing home in Hobbs, and a casino, community college and several neighborhoods were evacuated in the town of 29,000 as firefighters battled spreading grass fires at the edge of the city.